You must first dial a 1

Background: This one actually came from one of our own crew...we LIVE!!!

-----Original Message-----
From: Bili
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2002 2:49 PM
To: questions@stupidquestionsanswered.com
Subject: i got one!

Shaun my man!

I thought of this ...

Why is it when you dial a # on the phone and you DO NOT dial a 1 for a long distance call, you get a voice prompt telling you that you must dial a 1 when calling this #.
what's up with that? I mean we live in an age where I'm sure computers are doing all the work to give me that message, so if they can detect that I need to dial a 1, then why don't they just correct the problem and connect me!?! this is the digital age. I mean, my computer auto corrects works I misspell, what's up with that!

so my question is:
why must I dial a 1 If they already know that's what's was missing?
 

This is mainly a convention, for instance my cell has no such requirement. My local phone company requires a 1 for long distance, and can take or leave it when you are dialing the now required 10 digits for all local numbers. Many places with high population densities and heavy use of Cells, and separate Fax and Data Lines, are running out of phone numbers, requiring the phone company to add new numbers by splitting or overlaying area codes. Some local phone companies are using the 1 to delineate actual long distance calls from 10 digit local ones, probably mostly so that the customers will know which they are using. The questioner is correct, it really isn't necessary from a technological point of view. Here are some links with more
info:

http://www.nac.net/newareacodeFAQ.asp

http://www.bell-atl.com/areacode/pages/10digit.htm